A Healthy Dose of Humiliation
"A Healthy Dose of Humiliation" is the 6th episode in the first season of Campaign 2.0, and the 6th episode overall in the campaign. Summary * Yep, that vault’s super empty. Hundreds of magical artifacts are just gone. Missing. Absent. Nothing there. Am I driving it home, yet? Romskul’s a little worried, to say the least. He leaves us to investigate the vault if we want, and he returns to his office. * The interior of the vault looks very much like a display room - display boxes mounted up on pedestals sit empty, and there’s protective golems posted around the room. They’re all lying inert and deactivated. We find little rune-inscribed buttons stuck onto them, and upon removing them the golem activates! We quickly stick the button back on. * Through the Identify spell, Bryna learns the buttons are used to specifically deactivate constructs, such as the golems. We bring this information to Romskul. He tells us they’ve found a scorch mark that was probably residue from a teleportation spell, which is very odd; the vault is enchanted with a warding effect that dispels such magic. We are now considered part of the investigative process! * Sulelia mentions the bodaks she’d encountered in the meadow, they might be involved? Romskul is extremely confused - bodaks haven’t been around here in forever! Their sudden appearance is a little worrying, to say the least. * Bryna asks which taken item is the most dangerous. Romskul tells us nothing more than it’s an evil, vile book. The absence of all these magical items poses a great danger to everyone. * Seeing as this is a super investigative job, we figure that extra help through Ralo and Twiggs would be a huge help. We run back to the arena and schedule the public humiliation event for tomorrow in exchange for receiving none of the profits. Veru stays behind to organize things at the arena, and Sulelia and Bryna rush off to make promotional posters for the event. They’re all kind of shitty and crude, but they’ll do. Sulelia sprints over to the arena just in time to plaster posters everywhere. * Ralo and Twiggs are brought out of prison and are super confused as to why Orkrush is brimming with joy. He manacles them and leads them to the arena. They’re brought out onto a gladiatorial field and are sitting smack dab in the middle of a massive cheering audience. Oh, no. * A giant portcullis opens. Veru and Sulelia stand there, sticks and paddles in hand. Bryna watches from front-row seats. And so ensues funny antics! Ralo and Twiggs get the absolute shit beat out of them by two giant women. The crowd is going absolutely bonkers. At some point, Twiggs is launched into the air and batted across the stadium by Sulelia. Ralo’s kneecap is broken. Veru and Sulelia share a dance. It’s great! * ...And eventually, the event ends. All’s well ends well! We take the poor half-conscious sods home and the audience begins to trickle out. What a nice evening event! * The next morning back at the Augury, we’re expecting thanks from Ralo and Twiggs for getting them out of jail! While it was a much more painful alternative than what he’d expected, Twiggs is grateful. Ralo’s absolutely miserable and hobbles his way out of the lab. * Ralo leaves for the Waterways, the same tavern he and Twiggs got arrested in. Good times! In the corner, he spots a bald orange tiefling - the same guy Veru wanted to fight while looking for Strong McStrongarm. He signals for Ralo to come sit with him. * The tiefling asks Ralo to deliver a chest to Twiggs. It’s super heavy, but eventually he hauls the heavy-ass thing back to Bryna’s lab with some help. * In the meantime, the girls bring Twiggs down to the vault to see if we can find anything new. We find another button placed on one of the pedestals. Identify reveals that it’s specifically for deactivating magic on objects. Twiggs suggests we sample the soot from the teleportation scorch marking. * We head back to Bryna’s lab, and Ralo’s sitting outside with a chest! We take it inside. Twiggs opens it, and inside lies 5,000 gold, a super, duper nice dagger, and a note that reads “Keep it up, and there will be more” in Gnomish. * Twiggs remembers he’s supposed to meet up with the tiefling guy at the Waterways. We all follow him there. All of us are crammed up against a window trying to peer inside while Twiggs talks business with this mysterious tiefling dude. His name is Charmak, and he offers us a job that’ll take place in about a month. We’re supposed to clear out some dungeon in Sylvany, and we’re told we can take back any of the treasure we find. Back at Bryna’s lab, we all agree that we’re down to take the job. * Later, we report our findings in the vault to Romskul. After that we try and find out what beings could possibly want all these magical items. We narrow it down to beholders and dragons, but more specifically the latter. * In a quick Itoa history crash course, we learn that a long time ago there’d been a giant war fought against dragons who’d come from another plane to lay waste to the material plane. Eventually, the dragons were repelled, but there have still been dragons spotted afterwards - more recently, word of a green one seen around Wenshire. * After the library, we bring the soot from the teleportation circle to Bryna’s next door neighbor, Daisy. She’s the nice lady who was working on her botany project! She can help us sample the dirt, and mentions that the head security dude of the Augury, Aestron Seedral, has been calling off all investigations related to the vault ordeal. * We leave Daisy to do her thing and make our way to Aestron’s place to question him on the matter. He’s a bald human and resides in the warlock district. * Sulelia notices that he’s been super shifty as we question him. After she calls him out on that, he won’t even look at her. Aestron asserts that he’s calling everyone off because it’s his job to do so, and he doesn’t need any help. He orders us to cease our own investigation. * Uh, okay. Completely undeterred by that, we make our way back to Daisy to see what she’s found out. She’s discovered that the spell cast from the soot had been Plane Shift, and that it had been used on an item rather than a person. It seems as though all the items were siphoned out over time, then put into something like a Bag of Holding and that is what was teleported away. * We report our findings to Romskul, and are super insistent on having him at least doubt Aestron’s involvement in this. Romskul is reluctant to do so - they’ve been best friends for, like, ever. * If it comes down to it, Sulelia represents the supreme authority of Itoa, being a member of Helm’s Bastion. She can acquire a search warrant to raid Aestron’s place, if need be. * We ask for explicit permission to continue our investigation. While we can’t have anything on paper since it’s out of Romskul’s power, we’re good for off-the-books investigations. We decide to continue in our efforts. * Sulelia decides to stay with Daisy in the meantime, being afraid of something bad happening to her in the case that Aestron is actually involved and decides to retaliate. Ralo had mentioned her by name and told him where she lived, so it’s not entirely out of the question. * We go to sleepy sleep, and Veru makes spaghetti dinner for everyone. Yay! * In the morning, we head to Helm’s Bastion to inform Orkrush of everything that’s happening. We confirm that it’s totally within Sulelia’s power to get a search warrant, but we need more concrete evidence before we can do so. * Y’know what it’s time for? Shopping! We have all this newfound money, after all. Twiggs visits a magic shop run by a cool tabaxi dude who’s bedazzled with piercings and has cool dreads. There, he buys a ring that give emotions, and Sulelia buys a Bag of Tricks, a pouch full of beads that can summon animals. * Sulelia tries it out! She throws a bead onto the floor, and from that bead spawns a giant rat! Cool, let’s throw some more. Sulelia summons an additional weasel and badger, and the maximum amount of animals she can have at once is three. * Twiggs and Ralo plan to sneak around the Augury in hopes of finding more evidence against Aestron.